Tiger Woods comeback to PGA Tour ends with early exit

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Tiger Woods looks on anxiously after hitting a shot during his second round at the Congressional tournament.

Story highlights

Tiger Woods misses cut at Congressional on PGA Tour

Woods playing first tournament for three months

Shoots four over 75 to miss cut by four shots

U.S. Open champion Martin Kaymer misses cut at European Tour event

Tiger Woods may need to reappraise his schedule after his hopes of getting in four rounds of competitive golf ahead of the British Open were dashed Friday.

Woods chose to return after a three month lay-off at the tournament he hosts at the Congressional Country Club but it proved a short lived experience as he failed to make the cut by a distance.

The former world number one briefly raised hopes that he could survive for the weekend when he birdied the ninth and 10th around the turn, but his hopes nosedived with four straight bogeys on the back nine.

It left him with a 75 and allied to his first round three over 74 meant that on seven over 149 and four shots outside the cut mark.

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Woods had gone 26 previous events, dating back to the Greenbrier Classic in 2012, without failing to make the weekend.

Despite the setback, he adopted an upbeat tone at the press conference when assessing his performance.

"All little things I know I can fix. As I said, it's very encouraging.," Woods said.

His season has been ruined by a pinched nerve in his back, requiring surgery at the end of March and meaning he missed the Masters and the U.S. Open.

Next month's third major of the season at Hoylake is his immediate target as he bids to add to his 14 major titles and close on Jack Nicklaus' all-time record of 18.

Woods won at Royal Liverpool in 2006, but has three weeks to attempt to shake off the rust in his game and for the moment is not intending to tee it up at any further tournaments on either side of the Atlantic.

The final major of the season comes at Valhalla where Woods won the PGA Championship in 2000.

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During his layoff, Woods has fallen from first to fifth in the world rankings and he has not won since last August's World Golf Championships event in Akron, Ohio.

While he struggled, there was a four-way tie at the top with Australians Marc Leishman and Oliver Goss and American pair Ricky Barnes and Patrick Reed all on six-under.

Meanwhile on the European Tour, U.S. Open champion Martin Kaymer also disappointed in his first outing since his triumph at Pinehurst.

Kaymer shot a one-over 73 at the BMW International in his native Germany to miss the cut on level par. Four players, Rafa Cabrera-Bello, Emiliano Grillo, Pablo Larrazabal and Danny Willett held the halfway lead at 12-under.